Businesses or other entities having a need for volume printing typically use a production printing system capable of printing hundreds of pages per minute. A web of print media, such as paper, is stored the form of a large roll and unraveled as a continuous sheet. During printing, the web is quickly passed underneath printheads which discharge small drops of ink at particular intervals to form pixel images on the web. The web may then be dried and cut to produce a printed product.
Since production printers print high quality images at high speed, it is important that the drying process of the web is quick, effective, and efficient. One such drying mechanism is a hollow metal drum heated with a radiant energy source such as a lamp. The lamp heats the surface of the drum to a desired temperature and the web contacts the heated rotating surface of the drum to dry ink on the web at a controlled temperature. However, in conventional drum dryers, the total path length of the web is fixed. Current drum dryers are therefore limited in ability to adapt to a range of different drying requirements.